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Days of bad winds aloft all through the month of April was beginning to take a toll on chasers. Was this going to be another 1988, a really lousy year. On this day the pattern looked almost too good to be true, trying not to get excited we drove north to the target area along Kansas highway 160. A surface low was developing to our west and a hot dry push was approaching from the Texas Panhandle. Storms fired first to our north along an old outflow boundary and also to the west. The real show would come as the dryline lit off to our southwest. |
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All images and
text © copyright
Gene Moore |
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A high rest stop along the highway near Medicine Lodge Kansas
provided unlimited visibility for developing supercells. Chasers gathered in
this spot to wait for the big blowup, which happened in all directions from
southwest, through west and north. I like days like this, all these storms
scatter out the chasers, but most quickly converged near Sharon Kansas and
points east for a tornado extravaganza. |
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Waiting and watching from a nice roadside parking area gave us
time to record some timelapse photography. We were wishing for a few trees
though, but the nice anvil provided shade while enhancing the view. We were
excited about the developing supercell to the west then things got much more interesting to the
south. |
Things began to happen fast after the explosive blow up to our south-southwest. While the western supercell looked great the towers on the south activity was boiling and turning under as it reached the anvil level. It was obvious this south storm was going to be a monster. |
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 Doppler radar from Enid (VNX) showing reflectivity at tht time
these images were taken. Here is one more
radar
shot about 5 minutes later just before the hook approaches highway
160. |
 Doppler radar from Enid (VNX) showing area of rotation about 7-8 miles southwest of Sharon, Kansas. |
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A jet slices between the two expanding anvils. The one from the west storm is on the right and the rock hard one from the south storm on the left. |
While we were pacing the dark base to the south it wasn't very
long before we noticed the RFD notch. This storm skipped the wall cloud stage
and went directly to tornado. Quickly a rotating dust
cloud developed in the field to our south. |
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A transparent dust tube reaches from the base of the funnel to
ground. The developing tornado showed little or no movement north at this
time. |
A longer funnel reaches toward the ground as the dust column
darkens a bit. The debris cloud seemed to be moving a bit west instead of east;
which had been the previous storm movement. |
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This would be the last clear shot before the rain started
giving us trouble. A bothersome light rain was beginning to fall, just enough
to get the cameras wet. |
The debris cloud appears quite heavy at this time, but it's an
illusion as the funnel is tilted far back to the south and away from
us. |
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A panorama of the small supercell to our south,
tornado and weak precipitation core to our west. During the tornado the rain
increased at our position until it got heavy. Finally one inch hailstones begin
to fall lit from the west by the low sun angle. It was pretty much impossible
to shoot video outside as the northeast winds became stronger, I had to hold
the camera out the window braced against the door, then trade off with the
still camera. The passenger side of the car, and me were getting
soaked. |
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While we were shooting this tornado we kept watching the next
cell off to the east. The base was getting lower and darker. Also the hail at
our location was getting much larger. Rain was beginning to kill the contrast
on our little tornado. Not long after this scene it begin to rope out and we
took off to the east for the development of a spectacular rotating supercell
and tornado. |
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